


Third time's the charm

by sylviarachel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Flash Fic, M/M, Spoilers for Season 3, ambiguous suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Zimmermann and three anxiety attacks: 2009, 2014, 2017.</p><p>Written in half an hour, so, caveat lector?</p><p>(I have decided Guy, of Guy, Marty & Thirdy, is also Québécois, because I've met a ton of Francophones named Guy but not a single Anglophone<strike>, unless you count Guy Masterson in <i>Guys & Dolls</i></strike>.)</p><p>Characters, setting, etc., property of the amazing <a href="http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/about">ngoziu</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third time's the charm

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for detailed descriptions of anxiety attacks, drawn from life :P.
> 
> ETA: Also, warning for what may or may not be a suicide attempt (Jack isn't sure either).

**(1) 2009  
**

Jack is a Memorial Cup winner. He’s a predicted first-round NHL draft pick. His parents are proud of him, and tomorrow he’ll have his best friend (or ... whatever) beside him as they both put on their brand-new NHL jerseys. He should be on top of the world.

Instead, he’s locked in his billet family’s upstairs bathroom, half drunk on “celebratory” tequila shots but still hyperventilating and shaking so hard he almost can’t see, fumbling at the prescription bottle of Ativan, dropping it, scrabbling for it on the cold tiles.

He can’t decide whether he most wants to survive this, or not to survive it. _C’est pas que j’veux mourir_ , he would say, if there were anyone he could possibly say something like that to. _C’est que ... ben, vivre, c’est tellement difficile, tu sais?_

The expectations. The constant, vicious, never-ending fear of fucking up. Of not being good enough. Jack loves playing hockey, loves it more than is probably reasonable. Playing hockey is also the hardest, most terrifying thing he’s ever done.

He gets the bottle open, finally, and tips two pills into his hand. Swallows them.

Then two more.

He’s still shaking, still almost can’t catch his breath.

Someone knocks on the bathroom door.

“Zimms?” It’s Kenny. “You fall in?”

“Vas chier, Kenny,” Jack manages.

“Jack--”

Deep breath; try for something like normal. “Seriously, Kenny.” What comes out is more like Hockey Robot, but that’s pretty normal for Jack, eh?

“Fine. Fuck you, too.”

Kenny’s footsteps recede, which should be a relief, but somehow ... isn’t.

_Don’t think about it. Just breathe._

He’s still shaking hard, his stomach churning, his face hot, his head pounding.

A few more pills won’t hurt, right?

Or maybe they will. Right now, Jack decides he doesn’t care.

 

*

 

**(2) 2014  
**

“...I’m sure that’ll make your dad proud.”

Kenny yanks open Jack’s bedroom door, and Jack’s shaking, and he thought he couldn’t feel any worse than this but oh, _Crisse_ , Bittle is out there in the hall, _câlice, how much of that did he hear?_

The shaking intensifies, Jack’s teeth are chattering and he feels too big for his skin. Bittle’s saying his name and Jack can’t, he _can’t_ , _J’veux pas que tu me vois comme ça, j’veux jamais qu’tu me vois comme ça—_

Jack slams the door. Turns his back on it. Slides down, shaking, shaking, draws his knees up, buries his face in his hands.

“Jack,” Bittle says again, softly, from the other side of the door, but Jack just curls tighter on himself. _Bitty_ , of all people, why?

He didn’t anything could feel worse than Kenny coming here and saying ... saying _those things_ , but this does. Because something was happening with Bittle, they were starting to feel like friends, like people who could really talk to each other, like ... maybe ... something else that Jack doesn’t even understand, but still _wants_. And now Bittle’s heard Kent Parson saying horrible-but-true things about Jack, has seen Jack falling to pieces, and how can they ever come back from that?

How could anyone, having heard that, seen that, want anything to do with Jack ever again?

 

*

 

**(3) 2017  
**

“Shoot-outs, tabarnac. I fuckin’ hate shoot-outs,” Guy growls.

There’s a general mutter of pissed-off agreement from the rest of the Falcs making their slump-shouldered way back to the visitors’ locker room.

Jack doesn’t join in. That was his missed shot that lost them the game, lost them the series, and they’re kindly not blaming him, or not out loud, but he knows. He _knows_.

He manages to get out of his gear before the shakes get really bad, and then turns the shower up as hot as it’ll go and stays in there as long as he can get away with. When he emerges he finds the other guys have headed off the media and he almost cries with relief.

There’s a note on the seat of his stall, in Tater’s almost illegible printing: GOING TO DROWN SORROWS. GUY TEXT YOU WHERE.

Jack digs his phone out of his bag and texts the team’s group chat pre-emptively: _Going back to the hotel. Sorry I fucked up. Thanks for covering for me_.

He pulls his snapback down as far as it’ll go and keeps his head down as he exits the locker room, just in case, but it’s late enough that nobody’s around who wants to talk to him, apparently. Good. Out on the street, though, the locals are celebrating, and it’s loud and joyful and starting to get raucous and Jack _just can’t_.

The shakes are starting again, now, his teeth are chattering even though it’s not cold _at all_ in this fucking city and if he doesn’t get back to his hotel room _really fucking soon--_

Jack’s phone buzzes insistently. He fumbles it out of his jacket pocket, hands shaking, and sees the team chat is blowing up with responses to his apologetic text (all on the lines of _Fuck no, it wasn’t your fault_ , which he thinks should make him feel better but it doesn’t). He stuffs the phone back into his pocket and focuses on trying to find a cab. And on taking slow, measured breaths. And on not shaking right out of his skin.

The cab driver doesn’t recognize him, thank fuck, and in less than ten minutes he’s back in his room (more importantly, Tater isn’t) and frantically waking up his laptop, opening up Skype.

He just barely has time to think _Câlice, what if Bits isn’t alone_ , before Bitty’s anxious face appears in the Skype window, with his pillow and his stuffed bunny and his string of Christmas lights behind him. He looks at Jack, eyes big, and says, “Oh, honey.”

And Jack shakes and sobs and lets himself fall apart and Bitty’s crying a little, too— _Oh, sweetheart, I wish I could be there with you, I love you, you’re gonna be okay_ —but his voice is soft and sweet and grounding, and it doesn’t even matter what he’s saying because this, _this_ , is what Jack needs, or at least the closest he can get to it right now: Bitty, and nobody else, and permission to just be exactly who he is.

**Author's Note:**

> French notes:  
>  _C’est pas que j’veux mourir. C’est que ... ben, vivre, c’est tellement difficile, tu sais?_ \-- > It's not that I want to die. It's just, living is really hard, you know?  
>  _Vas chier_ \-- > roughly, Fuck off  
>  _J’veux pas que tu me vois comme ça, j’veux jamais qu’tu me vois comme ça_ \-- > I don't want you to see me like this, I don't ever want you to see me like this  
>  _Câlice_ , _Crisse_ , and _tabarnac_ are Québécois swear words.


End file.
